I looked back at the book.
“Yes,” Grandpa Smedry said tiredly. “Just wait until we show these to your father—if we can ever find him.”
I spun. “So you do think he’s alive?”
“Perhaps, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said. “Perhaps. Now that we have those Lenses, perhaps we can find out for sure. I wish I’d had a way to discover sooner. If I’d known for certain whether he was dead or not, do you think I’d have let you get raised by foster parents?”
I paused. Well, I guess the Lenses won’t help me when he makes no sense.
I opened my mouth to demand more, but Bastille cut me off. “Trouble coming! Librarian—the blonde one.”
I rushed over to the corridor and saw Ms. Fletcher striding toward the room, a troop of at least fifty soldiers marching behind her. These men and women were armored with shiny breastplates. A few Alivened lumbered in the background.
“Time to go, I think,” I said, pushing Bastille back. Then I slammed my hand into the ground.
The floor just in front of me fell away, blocks tumbling down to the story below us. I backed away from the hole with Bastille.
“Oh, very clever, Alcatraz,” Ms. Fletcher said, stopping at the pit’s edge. “Now you’ve trapped yourself.”
I smiled, raised an eyebrow, then pressed my hand against the back wall of the room. The bricks separated, mortar cracking. Sing came over and gave the wall a hefty push, toppling the bricks into the next room.
I winked at Ms. Fletcher, then reached down to slide a sword from the sheath of a fallen soldier. Ms. Fletcher stood with arms crossed, regarding Blackburn with a sour expression as I ducked out the broken wall after Sing, who was carrying Grandpa Smedry.
“Quickly, now!” Grandpa Smedry said. “We’re late!”
“For what?” I asked, running beside Sing and Quentin. Bastille, as usual, ran ahead of us, watching for danger.
“Why, for our dramatic exit, of course!” Grandpa Smedry said, sounding a bit tired. “Ms. Surly back there will try and cut us off at the front doors of the library.”
“I’ll simply make us another door,” I said. “We’ll bust out the back wall.”
“Ah, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said. “Haven’t you realized? This entire building is inside a box of Expander’s Glass—just like the gas station. Expander’s Glass is very hard to break, even with a Talent. Besides, if you did, we’d be crushed as the entire library tried to burst out of the hole you’d made.”
“Oh,” I said as we reached a stairwell. “Well then, I have another idea.”
“What?” Grandpa Smedry asked.
I smiled, then reached into my pocket. I pulled out a small white rectangle: the library card we had taken off of the dungeon guard.
* * *
The main lobby of the library was unusually busy for a weekday evening. People milled about perusing stacks of books, completely unaware—of course—that everything they saw was filled with Librarian fabrications.
They knew nothing of Alivened, of Librarian cults, of Smedrys, or of Lenses. They just wanted a good book to read. (None of them were, unfortunately, able to check out this volume. Not because it was banned—which it is—but because it simply hadn’t been written yet. Those poor people may never know the joy they missed out on.)
Small children looked through picture books. Parents checked out the latest thrillers. The rebellious, trouble-making types looked through the fantasy section. A few unfortunate kids ended up with meaningful books about dysfunctional families.
Few of the people noticed the large number of Librarians gathering behind the front desk. Fewer still noticed that these Librarians were oddly muscular. What nobody noticed, however, were the weapons carefully stashed behind the counter. Ms. Fletcher stood at the front of the group. She wished to avoid making an incident—but when incidents were necessary, they could be contained. Smedrys were far more difficult.
Despite the buildup of Librarian troops, most of the people in the room went about their libraryish activities. All in all, there was a sense of peace about the room. It was the joy and simple contentment that comes from being around books, Librarian sanctioned or not.
That peace ended abruptly as a door at the back of the room burst open and a group of dinosaurs rushed in.
It didn’t matter that the dinosaurs carried books. It didn’t matter that they were smaller than one might expect. It didn’t matter that most of them wore clothing. They were dinosaurs—and they were very, very realistic.
The screaming started a second later.
Mothers grabbed children. Men cursed, demanding to know if this was “some kind of joke!” Librarians stood, shocked. Their hesitation cost them greatly, for within seconds there was an air of general chaos in the room.
That was when I burst through the door, carrying a sword (something I still figured I should have had all along). I was followed by Bastille the Crystin, dressed in her stylish silver clothing. Quentin followed in his tuxedo, carrying Sing’s gym bag, now filled with Oculator’s Lenses. Sing came last, wearing his blue kimono and carrying Grandpa Smedry.
The dinosaurs dashed ahead of us, inadvertently crowding the people against the checkout counters. A few Librarian thugs broke through, but the others got trapped behind the desk, blocked by a horde of frightened people and excited dinosaurs.
Bastille met the first Librarian thug. She ducked his sword swing, then shoved him aside. He fell as she hopped over him, waving her sword toward the crowd. The people shied back in confused fear.
A Librarian behind the counter raised a crossbow.
That’s new, I thought, moving between the man and Bastille. I stared down the crossbow bolt, thinking about just how dangerous it was. This last bit was, of course, to convince myself. I was beginning to get the hang of my Talent. It only worked at a distance when—
The crossbow’s bowstring snapped free, flipping the crossbow bolt uselessly into the air. The Librarian watched it, dumbfounded, and I smiled, leaving Bastille to intimidate the people—and therefore keep the Librarians trapped. I rushed over to pull open the front library door.
I held it for Sing and Quentin. Bastille left next, and I paused, turning and grinning at the packed room. One of the dinosaurs—the triceratops—finally reached the checkout desk. He slammed down his pile of books, then placed the library card on top of it.
“I’d like to check these out!” he said eagerly.
Ms. Fletcher stood, arms folded as her soldiers tried to push through the crowd. She met my eyes, and I could see from her expression that she knew she was beaten.
I raised my sword to her in a gesture of farewell. The blade immediately broke off and dropped to the ground.
I stared at it for a moment. What? I thought I was finally figuring out how to control my Talent!
Ms. Fletcher gave me a curious expression, as if confused by my gesture, and I sighed, flipping the broken hilt into the room. Then I stepped out onto the sidewalk. Sing (still carrying my grandfather) and Quentin ran ahead, moving toward Grandpa Smedry’s little black car, which waited where it had been parked.
Bastille still stood by the door. She met my eyes. “All right, all right,” she said. “You were right about the dinosaurs. This time.”
I stepped aside as some brave library patrons finally pushed past me out onto the street.
“Your dinosaur friends are just going to get caught again,” Bastille said.
“Charles said he’d try to get them to leave in the confusion,” I said, joining her as we ran across the street. “It’s the best we can do.”
And it really was. Honestly, you have no i
dea how hard it is to work with dinosaurs. It’s no wonder the Librarians made up the myth about them going extinct—pretty much everyone in the Free Kingdoms wishes that one were true.
Sing set Grandpa Smedry in the passenger seat of the car, and Quentin squeezed into the back seat. Then Sing took the driver’s seat—holding the useless steering wheel as the car took off. Bastille’s silver sports car pulled up a second later. She climbed in, but I paused. My door had no handle. Finally, Bastille opened the door by rapping on the inside dash. “The inner door handle is gone,” she said, frowning.
“That’s very strange,” I said, sliding into the car. “Now, can we get going?”
She smiled, throwing the car into gear, then she slammed down on the pedal. I turned, watching out the back window. Behind us, a bunch of Librarians had finally managed to push their way out of the building. They watched in dismay as Bastille’s car squealed away.
I smiled, turning back around. “I assume you have ways of making sure that the Librarians don’t just have some of their police pick us up?”
“They don’t work that way,” Bastille said. “The Librarians keep as few people as possible informed about the true nature of the world. Most governments don’t know that they’re being manipulated. Now that we’re outside of the Librarian central base, we should have a little breathing room. Especially since we neutralized their Oculator.”
I nodded, resting back in my chair. “That’s good to hear. I think I’ve had enough sneaking, chasing, and other ridiculousness for one day.”
Bastille smiled, taking a sharp corner. “You know, Alcatraz, you’re a bit less annoying than most Smedrys.”
I smiled. “Guess I’ll just have to practice some more, then.”
Chapter
20
All right. It’s true. I lied to you.
You have undoubtedly figured out that there is no altar made of outdated encyclopedias in this book. There is no harrowing situation where I lie strapped to said altar, about to be sacrificed. There is no dagger-wielding Librarian about to slice me open and spill my blood into the void to complete a dark ritual. No sharks, no pit of acidic magma.